The present invention relates in general to Internet Web page service providers and, in particular, to systems and methods for facilitating presentation of subject categorizations for use in an on-line search query engine.
The use of the Internet as a communications medium has been met with overwhelming acceptance. In particular, the phenomenon of the World Wide Web (or simply xe2x80x9cWebxe2x80x9d) has been tremendously successful for reaching a wide audience for advertising and information dissemination. A wealth of information is available over the Web and the explosive growth of the Web has resulted in what could be termed an xe2x80x9cinformation overloadxe2x80x9d condition. Internet service providers (ISPs) have responded to this information explosion by providing on-line search query engines which enable a user to specify an information query and receive back search results which pare down the field of search.
Access to Web pages over the Internet is typically accomplished via a Web browser program. A typical Web browser includes provisions for navigating through a Web site using a graphical user interface for both receiving search queries from users and presenting search query results from search query engines.
One particularly effective format for presenting search query results is a xe2x80x9cYellow Pagesxe2x80x9d indexed format for listing businesses. To search an on-line Yellow Pages directory, a user enters a search query and obtains subject categorizations relating to the query being searched. One problem with prior art search query engines is that these engines are limited to performing literal word searches. Typically, prior art search query engines are restricted to a limited range of synonyms. Consequently, prior art search query engines often return xe2x80x9cItem Not Foundxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cInvalid Queryxe2x80x9d responses.
Further problems arise in the prior art with respect to the structure of Yellow Pages listings either being too rigid or unrelated to the search query itself. Yellow Pages listings are typically a single level deep and provide the addresses and locations of businesses falling within any one of a discrete number of individual categories. Each category is described by a heading. Prior art search engines limit users to the use of key words matching one of these discrete set of search categories and most do not allow search queries based on brand names.
Moreover, prior art search engines often function seemingly independent from the list of available synonyms for any given search query term. The synonyms themselves are too stringently searched based on the structure of the Yellow Pages directory. Consequently, the search query engine may return search results with no relationship to the search query.
Therefore, there is a need for an automatic thesaurus feature for use in an on-line search query engine which enables flexible look-ups using synonymous of the search query. Such an approach would preferably include an automatic synonym look-up feature for Yellow Pages subject headings. Moreover, the approach would preferably enable topical searches, business name, and brand name searches addition to standard Yellow Pages search engine functionality.
An embodiment of the present invention provides a system and method for facilitating presentation of subject categorizations for use in an on-line search query engine. A synonym list is built which includes a set of synonym entries. Each synonym entry includes a synonym name and a heading code. The synonym list is arranged in order of synonym name. A search query is accepted from a user on the on-line search query engine. The search query is normalized into a standardized word form with at least one word from the standardized word form matching one of the synonym names in the synonym list. Each of the synonym entries in the synonym list having at least one synonym name matching the at least one word in the standardized word form is retrieved. A heading list which includes a set of heading entries is accessed. Each heading entry includes a heading name and a heading code. The heading list is arranged in order of heading code. Subject categorizations are presented as the heading names from each entry in the heading list having a heading code matching one of the heading codes in each of the retrieved synonym list entries.
A further embodiment of the present invention provides a system and method for automatically locating headings in an on-line directory listing service responsive to a user search query. A heading list including a set of heading entries, each of which includes a heading name, is accessed. A synonym list including a set of synonym entries, each of which includes a synonym name, is accessed. A one-to-many relationship between each heading entry in the heading list and one or more synonym entries in a synonym list is formed. Each synonym name in the one or more synonym entries constitutes a synonym of the heading name in the heading entry. A search query from a user requesting information from the on-line directory listing service is accepted. The search query is parsed for individual terms. Each synonym entry in a synonym list is found with each found synonym entry matching one or more of the individual terms from the search query. The heading name from each heading entry in the headings list is retrieved for each heading entry that is related to each of the found synonym entries from the synonym list.
A still further embodiment of the invention provides a system and method for automatically locating headings using structured query language (SQL) in an on-line directory listing service responsive to a user search query. A heading table comprising a set of heading records each of which comprises a heading field storing a heading name and a synonym field storing one or more synonym names is accessed. Each synonym name in the synonym field includes a synonym of the heading name in the heading field. A search query is accepted from a user requesting information from the on-line directory listing service. The search query is parsed for individual terms. Each heading record in the heading table having a synonym name in the synonym field matching one or more of the individual terms from the search query is found using an SQL query. The heading name from each heading field for each of the found heading records in the heading table is retrieved.
Using a Web browser, a user can thus enter a search query and receive back subject categorizations with automatic synonym look-up. The section headings can be nested in a hierarchical manner. In addition, the user can enter a business or brand name as a search query and received back listings of businesses relating to that search query. This approach avoids the prior art limitations by enabling a user to flexibly specify broad search queries not restricted to a limited range of words for specific search terms appearing in the Yellow Pages headings themselves.